Product Safety Australia has provided a useful summary of the product safety laws changes to be implemented by the Australian Consumer Law on 1 January 2011 (here).

New Consumer Product Safety Guidelines have been released for comment.

Also from 1 January 2011 a supplier will be obliged to report an incident (whether this occurs in Australia or overseas) where a person has suffered death or serious injury or illness which was associated with a consumer good (or a product related to a service) the supplier has supplied. The supplier must give a notice of this to the Commonwealth Minister within two days.

The draft Mandatory Reporting Guidelines are open for comment until 20 October.